Away to France
Sunset
Clougha Pike with a Wriggle On.
Bog Asphodel.
An exciting day for A, her first lesson back in school. It was literally one lesson, although lasting for a couple of hours. Given the proscription against the use of public transport, I wanted to drive her there and back, but if I’d returned home in between I wouldn’t have been home for long before I needed to set off to pick her up again.
Caton Moor and Ingleborough from Clougha.
So, I decided to have an up and back wander on Clougha Pike from the Rigg Lane car park.
Morecambe Bay from Clougha.
It was hot and sticky. I really didn’t expect to reach the top before the time I’d decided was my cut-off point, but I did. Once there, I even thought I had time for a brief drink-and-sandwich stop, and I was probably right, but then four old friends arrived on the summit who I hadn’t seen for a while – quite a coincidence since we were the only people up there. It seemed rude to rush off, but I kept my catching-up chatter to a minimum, much as I would have liked to have chewed the fat for a while longer.
Emperor Moth caterpillar. A very striking caterpillar – the adults too look stunning, at least in the photographs I’ve seen. Maybe an early evening ascent of Clougha is called for at the appropriate time of year.
Looking back up to the edge.
I was a little late picking-up A, but I think she forgave me. She certainly wasn’t surprised!
Later, at the Cove for the sunset.
Small Wonders
The view from Castlebarrow – Warton Crag, Clougha Pike and the shorn fields around home.
Unlike my last post, this one features photos taken on numerous different walks, over a week.
I climbed Arnside Knott to watch the sunset. By the time I reached the top, it had clouded up, so these shots from beside the Kent Estuary earlier in the walk were better than those taken later.
In my many visits to Gait Barrows I’d noticed a few low sprawling shrubs with pointed glossy leaves. I kept checking on them to see what the flowers looked like.
I’m very pleased to report that this is Wild Privet, especially since I have been misidentifying Geans as Wild Privet until this year.
Wild Thyme.
Biting Stonecrop.
Heath Speedwell.
“What I did not fully realise when I set out was the unexpected reward that comes from searching for wild flowers. Flower finding is not just a treasure-hunt. Walking with your head down, searching the ground, feeling close to nature, takes you away from a world of trouble and cares. For the time being, it is just you and the flower, locked in a kind of contest. It is strangely soothing, even restorative. It makes life that bit more intense; more than most days you fairly leap out of bed. In Keble Martin’s words, botanising takes you to the peaceful, beautiful places of the earth.”
Scorpion Fly, female.
“Meanwhile Brett was diverted by the insects visiting the flowers…I felt an unexpected twinge of envy. How exciting life must be, when you can take a short walk down to the river bank and find small wonders in every bush or basking on a flower head, or making themselves comfortable under a pebble. Why don’t more of us look for Lesne’s Earwigs instead of playing golf or washing the BMW?”
Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary.
Ringlet.
Large Skipper, female.
Possibly a Gypsy Cuckoo Bumblebee.
A Calla Lily at Woodwell again.
Both quotes are from ‘Chasing the Ghost’ by Peter Marren.
Songs about flies?
‘Human Fly’ by The Cramps.
‘I am the Fly’ Wire.
Other songs which spring to mind: ‘Anthrax’ by The Gang of Four for its line ‘I feel like a beetle on its back’, or, similarly ‘Song from Under the Floorboards’ which has Howard Devoto declaring ‘I am an insect’. But I’ve shared both of those before, I think. Californian punk band Flipper also recorded a version of ‘There Was An Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly’, but, to be frank, I never really liked it. It’s altogether a very punky collection of songs. I’m not sure whether that reflects a squeamishness about insects in mainstream music, or just the fact that it’s with punk that I am best acquainted? There must be some good butterfly songs, but aside from ‘Caterpillar’ by The Cure, which, again, I’ve shared before, I can’t think of any at present.
Who’ll Stop The Rain?
Male house sparrow – with nesting material? – on the wall by the ginnel to Townsfield.
The photos in this post are drawn from walks on several consecutive days, which were obviously a bit gloomy, judging by the photos.
Oxeye daisy.
Never mind, there always plenty to see none-the-less.
Speckled wood butterfly.
Germander speedwell.
I thought this might be creeping jenny, but it’s not, it’s the very similar, and related, yellow pimpernel.
Which I found flowering on the margin between woods and grassland on Heathwaite. I was on my way up the Knott.
I’ve walked past this gateway many times recently and thought that maybe I’d never been through it.
This time I tried it and discovered a path which I don’t think I’ve walked before. It runs parallel to other paths I have walked and wasn’t really significantly different to those, but I was still pleased to find a route which was new to me.
The views were a bit limited, the lakeland hills being shrouded in low cloud, but Cartmel Fell, running up to Gummer How was clear, as was Whitbarrow Scar.
And there’s always the Bay to admire.
Lady’s mantle displaying the recent rain.
The Bay from the Cove.
Sea radish.
Blackbird – sometimes blackbirds can be quite bold, this one didn’t seem at all bothered by my interest.
Surprised by movement in a puddle on a path, I looked down to see this fairly large black beetle. It was swimming quite proficiently, but I couldn’t work out why any kind of water beetle would be in a puddle quite a way from any open water on the one hand, or what any other kind of beetle would be doing swimming at all on the other. I suppose I should have fished it out to have a closer look.
Salad burnet.
Lady’s mantle again.
Bird’s-eye primrose by Hawes Water.
Gloucester Old Spot pig.
Sadly, the farm at Hawes Villa is going to close. Apparently they’ve lost the battle for planning permission for the yurts on their campsite and without the extra income that brings in the farm is not profitable. A great shame for the family and the village and that the conservation breeding programme has come to an end. On a personal note, we filled a freezer with pork from the farm and it was great to be able to buy local produce from a source that we could see with our own eyes was genuinely free range with excellent welfare.
Just missed the sunset from Jack Scout. Again.
Oxeye daisy, germander speedwell, creeping jenny, yellow pimpernel, lady’s mantle, bird’s-eye primrose, sea radish – don’t our wildflowers have great names? The lady’s mantles pictured above are, I suspect, one of the garden varieties, which self seed freely and so have become naturalised. The latin name is Alchemilla mollis which I think also has something of a ring to it; Alchemilla from alchemy, because of the supposed herbal benefits of the plant.
After yesterday’s post with four songs all covered by one singer, todays I’ve gone for almost the opposite: covers of songs all originally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
‘As Long As I Can See The Light’ by the incomparable Ted Hawkins
‘Proud Mary’ by Solomon Burke. I think the version by Ike and Tina Turner is better known; I believe it was Solomon Burke who suggested they should cover the song.
‘Born on the Bayou’ by Trampled Underfoot.
‘Lodi’ Dan Penn
‘Who’ll Stop The Rain’ Dwight Yoakam
‘Wrote A Song for Everyone’ Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy (if the name sounds familiar, he’s from the great band ‘Wilco’).
Hmmm. Got a bit carried away there. If you’re a big fan of Creedence, and I am, you might argue that none of them are a patch on the originals. I’m not sure, but I think there’s some good stuff here. Do you have a favourite – I’m struggling?
These Hills Are Ours
I’ve put the music at the top of the post for once: I think it deserves pride of place.
So, as advertised, finally, here it is. Back in March, I signed up for a brilliant project which combined singing and hill-walking. There were just two rehearsals, the second of which I couldn’t make because I was in the Tower Captain’s car on the way up the M74 for our weekend at Bridge of Orchy.
Actually, there was a third, very last minute, practice, on the morning of the event, in the Morecambe lifeboat station…
…for which purpose, the lifeboat people had very kindly moved their hovercraft out…
Then we wandered down to the end of the stone jetty for the first performance…
It was wet and windy and absolutely perishing. Sounded good, though, to my untutored ears.
And, through the wind and the rain, our destination, Clougha Pike, briefly appeared above the buildings along Morecambe’s seafront…
“Breakers, rollers, pebbles, sand, Half at sea and half on land,”
Admittedly, it is a bit hard to pick out in the photo, but it is there.
I lived for a while in a third floor flat on the promenade and the views of the Bay in one direction and across Lancaster to Clougha in the other were superb.
Anyway, our aim was to climb Clougha starting from the sea front and then get down safely before it got dark, so there was no time to hang around. We passed the Midland…
And joined the network of cycle tracks which connect Morecambe and Lancaster.
We crossed the Lune by Carlisle Bridge…
And then set-off on a long loop along the quay and then a footpath to Freeman’s Wood, where we sang again.
The graffiti is part of the lyrics from the song.
Freeman’s Pools.
The route had been cunningly devised to bring us all the way through both Morecambe and Lancaster on either footpaths or very quiet bits of road.
An arrangement has been made with the Fox and Goose pub, on the outskirts of town, so that we could use their beer garden for a quick break and use their loos. We’d been walking for a few hours without really stopping and I was more than ready for a sit down, a drink and a sandwich.
The next part of the walk was inevitably confined to the roads, there being an unfortunate lack of paths linking Lancaster to the hills above it. At least we could see Clougha more clearly now and the weather was improving too.
We stopped again at the Rigg Lane car park, where the ascent would begin in earnest, and where we were offered an impromptu stretching routine…
Some people had opted to miss some parts of the walk, and joined us again at the car park.
“The brook is from a picture book”
An unnamed (on the OS map) tributary of The River Conder, which itself drains into the Lune near Glasson Dock; which makes this walk one of my Lune Catchment walks.
Clougha Pike.
Morecambe Bay.
“Rocks like booby traps.”
The going was pretty rough here and the pace predictably slowed. I’d been feeling a bit bushed, but picked up now that we were off the roads.
Approaching the top.
Most of the people I talked to seemed to belong to at least one of the, I discovered, many choirs in the Lancaster area. I used to sing with the Carnforth Community choir for a while, and enjoyed it enormously, but the meetings changed to an evening which I can’t really make. One positive outcome for me of joining this project, aside from the fact that I had a great time, is that I was told about a choir which sounds very welcoming and which meets in Lancaster on a night which is much more convenient. Well – used to meet in Lancaster and will, at some point presumably, be meeting again.
“Rain will slick the stones, Wind will wind around your bones.”
We sang one last time on the top and then it was just a matter of wending our way back to the car park and then the logistics, thankfully well organised by Dan, of getting everybody back to their cars and/or homes.
We were none too soon heading down – the sun was getting low in the sky.
Some links to the creatives…
Daniel Bye who wrote the words.
Boff Whalley who wrote the music.
and Bevis Bowden who made the film.
Maps:
Mapmywalk gave a little over 16 miles all told, from car to car. Dan told us that from the end of the stone jetty to the top of Clougha was 13 miles, which sounds about right. You could shorten it a fair bit by taking a more direct line through Lancaster, which would be pleasant enough, although that would also necessitate a fair bit more up and down I think.
Have you ever climbed a hill with a choir? Or tried a sea to summit ascent?
Distractions and Digressions
Early light on Grange.
In the first few weeks of working from home I was often out early for a pre-work jaunt. Sadly, I think these photos come from the last of those. I seem to have fallen into the habit of stumbling out of bed and downstairs to the computer just in time to start working. Once I’m on the computer, I enter that curious world where time seems to operate differently and what seems like five minutes of reading and composing emails can turn out to be a lot longer. On occasion, it’s been two hours later before I’ve surfaced and properly kick-started my day with a cup of tea.
An earlier start on a sunny, pin-sharp morning is a much better way to start the day, obviously. Must Try Harder!
It’s less than two miles to the toposcope on the Knott, even by the slightly longer route I’ve been using to avoid going through the yard at Arnside Tower Farm, which seems like an insensitive thing to do in present circumstances, so it’s isn’t like the walk need take too long.
Anyway, back to this particular walk…
It looked like it would have been a very fine morning to be out in the Coniston Fells.
And although there was a little cloud clinging to the tops, non-too-shabby in the Eastern Fells as well.
Mid-level clouds, I’d say – altocumulus?
The later starts are not the only change since lockdown began. During the latter part of April, I really pushed myself to ‘beat’ my total mileage for January. I did it, just, but towards the end it began to feel a bit like hard work. So once we’d slipped into May, I took a little rest for a couple of days. It was hot and I think I may have even lazed in the garden one day, rather than go out for a walk.
I know, shocking decadence! Lying down on the job…
Then my little rest was extended by a couple more days: I had a bit of a scare – high temperature, stiff and sore all over, but nothing too drastic, the kind of thing that might have kept you off work for a day or two in normal circumstances. Briefly though, it was a bit worrying. I even had a test, arranged online and very efficiently carried out by squaddies in a car park in Lancaster, well, in fact, self-administered, but with socially-distanced assistance from the young soldiers. I have to say, I’m full of admiration for all those people who have put themselves in harm’s way during this crisis to keep the rest of us safe and well-fed. Anyway, by the time the text arrived giving me the all clear, I was feeling fine and straining-at-the-leash to get out again, having self-isolated whilst waiting for the test result.
None of that, though, is the main reason that my mileage for May fell well short of my total for April. June is not likely to be any different either. Perhaps I should say ‘main reasons’, plural, the reasons being Unfortunate Distractions and my inability to resist them. Distractions like…
A common carder bumblebee busy collecting pollen from bush vetch flowers.
I took a lot of photos because both the bee and the flowers were marvellous colours, perfectly complementing each other and the light was ideal.
There are three all-ginger bumblebee species in the UK, but the common carder is prevalent and I’m not sure that the other two, the moss carder and the brown-banded carder, are found in this neck of the woods.
Is this too many photos of one bee for one blog post? I took a lot more!
Bush vetch is a leguminous plant, i.e. of the pea family. The flowers are small and, I suppose, easily overlooked, but well worth closer examination.
This wasn’t helping me get home in time for a pot of tea and some breakfast and to make some dough before starting work.
Fortunately, I was nearly home and just needed to walk along Townsfield to finish my walk. Confusingly, Townsfield is both a road, a cul-de-sac, and a field. As I turned into the road, a pair of roe deer crossed the road ahead of me and leapt gracefully over the drystone wall with striking ease.
Another Unfortunate Distraction. Oh no!
The Unfortunate Distractions ran across the field and then wandered along the hedgerow opposite.
I think this was the same pair I’d surprised in Eaves Wood a few days before. He had almost entirely changed into his summer coat with just a few scraps of the older, duller winter fur still evident; she, on the other hand, had hardly begun to shed her warmer winter garb. Not too dissimilar from most human couples I would think, like me and TBH in shorts year round and still wrapped up well into the summer respectively. Or rehashing the same old arguments about the settings on the thermostat. Our thermostat is remote from the boiler and seems to move mysteriously around the house. I can never find it, when I want to turn it down anyway. Takes an age touring all the rooms turning all the radiators down individually! (Oops! Shhhh. Don’t tell.)
Not that these are really a couple as such. For a while I’ve almost always seen roe deer in pairs, but roe deer, of either sex, are not monogamous. The rut is not until later in the year, but I assume that the large number of mixed gender pairs I’ve been seeing is in some way part of the wooing process.
He looked smaller than her, but I don’t think he was immature, his antlers have three tines, although his brow tines are very small. Three is as many as they get, at age three.
He’s also definitely got a coronet and maybe some pearling, which is what develops as they age. They aren’t particularly long-lived creatures, with various sources giving something like six or seven years as an average and anything between ten and sixteen as a maximum in the wild.
Again, I took many more photos than the, perhaps too many, I’ve shared here. Whilst I was watching the deer, half-hiding behind a telegraph pole – me, not the deer – I was in turn being watched, by a house sparrow, on the next telegraph pole…
Probably thought I was bonkers, since any thought of a shower, breakfast or bread-making before work were now definitely out of the question.
Stratocumulus or cumulus?
At lunch time that day I had to pop to the shops, which is a legitimate reason to be out, obviously. Can I ‘pop’ via the Cove and the Lots do you think? Well, I did, and no harm done.
I’ve bunged this one on the end because I like to finish with a sunset photo. B wanted to go to Jack Scout one evening to catch the sunset. We contrived to just miss it, after putting too much faith in the BBC weather website. I took lots of photos, but all essentially the same. Lovely walk all the same.
Tunes. Today, two very full-on songs and then, in each case, a deliciously different cover version.
Back to my punk roots to kick off, with Black Flags ‘Wasted’ all 51 raging seconds of it…
…and then Camper Van Beethoven’s brilliant cover…
…it’s from their ‘Telephone Free Landslide Victory’ album, which, if you haven’t heard it already, you should definitely seek out.
Next up, ‘Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos’ from Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back’
Which was totally transformed by Tricky on his ‘Maxinquaye’ album…
Finally, not music, but a movie trailer, for Alex Cox’s weird and wonderful 1984 comedy science-fiction b-movie strangeness ‘Repo Man’.
Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton star, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies and Iggy Pop feature on the soundtrack. Great film.
Cotoneaster, Galls, Quiz
Another portmanteau with photos from various days and walks.
I spent ages photographing a wide assortment of bees on a cotoneaster in our garden. I’ve noticed whilst walking through the village that bees seem to go mad for cotoneasters; every one I’ve passed has been thronged. The light wasn’t ideal and bees will dodge about, so this is the only sharpish picture. And it’s of….a white-tailed bumblebee, or a northern white-tailed bumblebee, or a cryptic bumblebee or a buff-tailed bumblebee. Apparently, the workers of all four species are virtually indistinguishable, and it may require a DNA test to separate them. I haven’t quite got the lab set up yet, so it will have to remain a mystery.
I keep seeing a coal tit, or possibly different coal tits, dipping in and out of the drystone wall across the track from home, but it isn’t the same hole each time, so maybe there’s something tasty in there, rather than a nest? I am pretty sure that there are both great tits and coal tits nesting either in, or near, our garden because there seems to be a constant chattering of young and I’ve frequently seen both kinds of tits carrying food into shrubs by our neighbour’s fence.
Aquilegias again.
This is my flagrant attempt to plagiarise a photo I saw of the orchids on the Lots by a local photographer. His picture was absolutely stunning. I shall have to try again another time. I think I probably shouldn’t have had the setting sun actually in the picture.
The Bay from the Cove.
Horseshoe vetch.
Black-headed gulls.
Green-winged orchid.
This is the tree, in the corner of a field close to home, in which I watched a tree-creeper earlier in the spring. It’s a lime, I don’t know which kind, but I have found how how to tell – it’s all down to the hairs on the underside of the leaves apparently. I shall probably check tomorrow.
All three of our native species have their own mite which infests the leaves and induces them to produce these lime nail galls. (In the process of finding this out I’ve discovered a book “Britain’s Plant Galls: a Photographic Guide” – so tempting!)
I took lots more, mostly blurred, photos of roe deer in mid-May. Most often, I saw them in pairs, like these two. I wish I could remember where I saw them.
Post sunset from Castlebarrow.
And from the Lots.
Around this time, when we should have been camping in Wasdale, we had out first zoom quiz with our camping cronies. I think we’ve had four now. It’s no substitute for sitting around a camp fire after a day in the hills and a barbecue, but it’s a lot better than not seeing each other at all. Better yet, we have volunteers to write the next two quizzes. The Silverdale posse are surely due a win.
I can’t claim responsibility for this screen shot and I hope nobody objects to me using it. It occurs to me, looking at it again, that we may be falling down, as a quiz team, due to a significant lack of headgear.
Tunes. Three crackers:
Perfect?
Swallow.
A speedwell. I don’t think it’s germander, the leaves were wrong. But I’m not sure what it is. It was tiny.
This footpath sign is looking decidedly worse for wear.
A magnificent copper beech near Hollins Lane.
Hart’s-tongue fern.
I thought these looked a bit exuberant for cowslips. I now realise but they are false oxlips, a hybrid of primrose’s and cowslips. There is a separate plant, the oxlip, but that isn’t found in the northwest.
The plants are tall like cowslips, but the flowers look more like primroses and radiate around the top of the stem rather than drooping all on one side as cowslips usually do.
For comparison…
…here are some shy and retiring cowslips.
These cowslips…
…which I saw a little further into the walk, are a bit more vivacious but still not as boisterous as the false oxlips.
Early Purple Orchid.
Carnforth saltmarsh and the Forest of Bowland from Heald Brown.
I was heading for Jenny Browns Point, with the aim of crossing the sands of the miniature bay between Know Point and Park Point.
On Heald Brow many of the grassland flowers had appeared.
Although the wildflower key tells me that tormentil flowers from June to September, I’m pretty sure that this is tormentil flowering in early May.
Bird’s-foot trefoil.
A buttercup, I don’t know which kind.
Pignut.
Speckled wood butterfly.
Warton Crag and Quicksand Pool.
A small group of greylag geese were sunning themselves on the far bank of quicksand pool. Most moved as I approached, but this one…
…gave me a steady stare…
…then had a leisurely stretch as if to say, “Don’t flatter yourself that I’m moving on your account. ”
Before strolling away nonchalantly.
You can see where I was heading almost dead centre in the photo above. I weaved a bit to investigate any foreign looking objects. Lord knows what this was or where it had come from.
Cirrostratus?
Herring gulls.
On Heathwaite, I tried a slender path which I haven’t followed before. It gave tantalising views of the sands I had recently crossed.
Eventually I reached the more familiar viewpoint by the bench. That’s Know Point right of centre, so you can see part of my route across the sands.
Nothing – and I mean, really, absolutely nothing – is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilised – more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines – and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history. In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns , the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 50,318 square miles the world has ever known – almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is.
Bugle.
I have three books on the go at the moment: I’m still reading ‘The Age of Absurdity’ by Michael Foley, I’m well into ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’ by Bill Bryson and I’ve recently started ‘Damned’ by Chuck Palahniuk, of ‘Fight Club’ fame. No prizes for guessing which of the three the quote comes from. I’m a big fan of Mr Bryson – Little Dribbling has a mixture of curious facts, lyrical description and curmudgeonly comedy which I’m finding very absorbing. He does repeat himself a little – he often expresses a fondness for our path network for example, but I’m ready to forgive him that.
Kent Estuary from The Knott.
I’m enjoying ‘Damned’, but probably shouldn’t have read another humorous book so hard on the heels of ‘A Pelican at Blandings’ and ‘Service with a Smile’. Palahniuk is witty, but he’s not Wodehouse.
Lakeland Fells from the Knott.
Whitbarrow Scar. The tree on the right is a Lancashire Whitebeam…
…with silvery leaves.
Later, I defied the lockdown to go out a second time and walk to the end of the lane, about 260 yards perhaps…
….the evening light was lighting the church and the stratus (?)…
I think my eyes were functioning okay.
Two unlikely covers today. First up, Baby Charles’ cover of The Arctic Monkey’s ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’.
And then World Domination Enterprises’ decidedly lo-fi, noise-fest cover of Lipps Inc’s ‘Funkytown’
It was either this or their classic ‘Asbestos Lead Asbestos’. Terrific live band. (In the 80s: I have no idea what they are up to now!)
Sun Drops Behind Grange
I noticed a bit of an orange glow in the sky one evening and decided to walk up the lane for a better vantage.
“I’ll come for a walk”, TBH told me.
So, back to the house to swap Crocs for socks and shoes, a modicum of faffing, and by the time we set off the sun had dipped behind a cloud and the prospect of a spectacular sunset seemed fairly remote.
It wasn’t until we reached The Cove that we realised that the sun, I think with an intervening veil of cloud, looked huge and was glowing orange.
The Lazy Trumpeter
Early light on the new leaves at the circle of beeches.
Squirrel.
Pano from Castlebarrow. (Click on this, or any other, picture to see a larger image on flickr)
Orchids on the Lots.
Early purple orchid.
Welsh poppies.
Bottoms Farm.
Post sunset at The Cove.
The entire beach has acquired a silver-grey crust. Not the best light to show it, I know.
So, back to my wish list of lockdown activities. Have I ‘practiced my trumpet playing’?. Have I heck. It sits in its case under my desk, just as it has for years. Perhaps I should explain – in my teens I was in a brass band. It was great fun, but I was a lousy musician: I didn’t practice enough. I didn’t play the trumpet. I started at second baritone horn and slowly progressed to first euphonium, not because of any progress on my part, but because it was a junior band and the other players grew up and left for pastures new. Mostly the senior band which practised in the same hall. I don’t remember anybody playing the trumpet, the closest we had was a solitary flugelhorn and a host of cornets. In good time, I moved away myself, and for many years didn’t play an instrument.
Anyway, some years ago, when all our kids were learning to play various instruments, I decided that it was a shame that I’d ditched mine and decided to buy a trumpet – that being smaller and cheaper than what I’d played before. I did practice for a while, but my enthusiasm didn’t last all that long. I thought while we were off that I would have loads of time on my hands and would get started again, but it hasn’t really played out that way. Tomorrow though….I’m bound to pick it up again. There’s always tomorrow!
This…
…as well as providing the title for the post, is the piece which I remember most affectionately from my brass band days.
This is obviously very different. I saw Kid Koala live down in London many years ago with my brother. I think he was the support act, but I can’t remember who it was he was supporting. I do remember being spellbound when he performed this.
And from ‘Drunk Trumpet to ‘The Piano Has Been Drinking’:
